Year: 2025
Label: SharpTone Records

US act Psycho-Frame’s debut is one of those albums that doesn’t beat around the bush. From the very first seconds of the first song, it plays with an open hand: this is deathcore. Of the stupidly heavy, delightfully extreme kind.

Kicking off with an incredibly low, guttural, gurgling growl before launching into a full-speed blast and insanely sawing guitars, it takes all of ten seconds for the group to attune the listener to the correct frequency. Subtlety is not the word here. And the heftily named Salvation Laughs In The Face Of A Grieving Mother is all the better for it.

Apparently Psycho-Frame have been making waves in the deathcore community. I wouldn’t really know about that, because though I’ve lately come to like the genre, I can hardly claim to be “in the know.” But apparently they have, and based on this debut album, rightly so. Because – let’s be as direct as the album is – this album is quite stunning.

Yes, I know many of you have prejudices towards deathcore. But, whilst Salvation Laughs In The Face Of A Grieving Mother very clearly is deathcore, it will also possess a strong charm to fans of death metal. The production is undeniably deathcore, having a somewhat cleaner sound than those of us used to proper death metal are accustomed to; very little dirt, grime and shit under the fingernails here. Musically, though, there’s a lot of death metal elements here, ranging from slam elements in the breakdowns to excessive brutality reminiscent of – you guessed it! – brutal death metal.

Combine the above with the absolutely knuckleheaded, vicious attitude of the band. The breakdowns are stupid heavy, the double vocal attack with their typical low guttural/high shriek dynamic are excessively violent and hateful (and the occasional pig squeals are a particularly nice touch), the blasting parts a maelstrom of skilled drumwork and mindless shredding. Subtle music this is not, but Psycho-Frame make this into an asset. The sheer intensity and brazenness of the music make sure of that.

Somewhat surprisingly, Psycho-Frame manage to make music that’s almost like every deathcore cliché turned up to eleven, and at the same time squeeze in a surprising amount of variety and flavour into the album. From the rolling groove of I Won’t Be There To Watch You Go to the lightning fast insanity of Apocalypse Through Lysergic Possession’s intro (which segues into another ludicrously heavy and extremely fulfilling slow section), from the thrash plod of Inverted Spear Of Heaven to the crushing heaviness of Still Water Salvation, Psycho-Frame not only squeeze in identifiable moments into most tracks, but also an exhausting amount of variation. And still manage to keep things from falling apart.

Yes, I do fully realize I’m gushing. But that’s just how excited and impressed I am with Salvation Laughs In The Face Of A Grieving Mother. That’s how intense, brutal, tight and simply convincing the album is. In so many ways, it is rather on the nose, but it’s that in such an honest and transparent way that instead of becoming tiresome, it becomes enamouring.

This is, definitely and without a shadow of doubt, my favourite new release of 2025.

Visit Psycho-Frame on their homepage, Bandcamp, Facebook or Instagram